What a neat little DSLR. My daughter wanted a DSLR after using mine for the past month. I though about many options including used ones. When it came down to it I settled on this one because of its weight and compact combination of the 18 - 55 lens. My daughter does a lot of hiking and I thought this would be a body and lens that would fit as it is light and easy to carry in her small back pack. It is even small enough to fit in oversize jacket pocket.

When it comes down to it I think it will get a lot of use because it is not a pain to carry. I gave it a workout over the weekend. I feel in love with it so and the kit lens rocks so much I'm going to get one. It is the first VR lens I used. It works great and I was able to get great low light photos with no tripod. Being a DX lens you get wider view, again first DX I have used. The lens compacts in towards the camera body when it is not in use.

The body really takes great photos but if you know what you need to do any body will take great photos. It has enough controls that you can have fun outside of the auto function. The only downside is that it only has one card slot.

I like it and I hope you find my brief review helpful. You can find more in depth reviews online.

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3-9-2004 official date
2007 official date of death
3-2012 a new beginning

It sounds like a fine choice for a first DSLR that she won't outgrow for a long time. My first DSLR was a 3100, very similar to the D3300, and it is still my prime camera. In more than five years it has been beat around, but has performed flawlessly for about 50,000 shutter actuations. Auto-focus works better than my old eyes and slow reflexes.

The kit 18-55 lens is surprisingly sharp. It is too slow for some indoors sports and has moderate barrel distortion. The Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 for that camera works well where really needed. Rather than get the 55-200 kit lens, I splurged on the 55-300 for its extra reach. The reviews that said it wasn't tack sharp at 300mm were right. Most lenses in Nikon SLR mounts from decades ago work on this camera in manual operation.

Keeping a spare memory card and a fully charged spare battery at hand is wise. One charge gets me through several basketball games without flash (many hundred shots). I had one non-OEM battery that worked very well, although others that came with a second-hand Panasonic camera did not.

My back-up camera is a D5100, although it may get promoted to number one when the football season starts for its slightly higher ISO rating.